The Changing Design of Shopping Places
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The Changing Design of Shopping Places From the palatial department SHOPPING IS an interaction between a marketing strategy and the store to the no-frills power design of the shopping place. The envi- ronment is an integral part of the retail center, design plays a key role equation, as important as the way that goods are marketed. Sometimes changes in retailing environments. in shopping are driven by environmental innovations, sometimes by innovations in strategy, and sometimes innovations occur in both realms at once. The only constant is change, for retailing, more than other sector of commercial real estate, is particu- larly susceptible to fashion. Whatever attracts consumers one year may repel them the next. WITOLD RYBCZYNSKI 34 ZELL/LURIE REAL ESTATE CENTER ARCADES AND GALLERIES the glass roofs meant that shops usually sold expensive goods, and most arcades For centuries, the design of shops was rel- were located in fashionable districts such as atively static. Shops were small, usually Piccadilly. A number of arcades were built owner-operated, and though the shop- in American cities such as Philadelphia, window is a venerable device, displays of New York, Cleveland, and Providence. goods inside the shop were minimal. In The grandest arcades, such as those in many cases, manufacturing occurred in a Berlin, Moscow, and Naples, were referred back room. Since the shopkeeper generally to as galleries. The Galleria Vittorio owned the building, in which he also lived, Emanuele II in Milan, built in 1865–67, a shoemaker’s shop or a bakery combined has an extremely tall and ornate interior, retail, workshop, and residential. There and a spectacular glass dome in the mid- was little scope for real estate development. dle. The Galleria functions particularly One of the first examples of retail prop- well because, as A. Alfred Taubman erty development is the glass-roofed observed in these pages (“Mall Myths,” arcade, lined with shops, which originated WRER Spring 1998), the adjacent in European cities in the early 1800s. The Duomo functions as a “people pump.” first arcades were in Parisian passages, or Arcades and galleries are the ancestors narrow mid-block alleyways. The roofs, of the indoor shopping mall, but they dif- resembling greenhouse roofs, were cast- fered in two important respects: their loca- iron structures covered in glass. Arcades tions were urban rather than suburban; were an ingenious real estate idea, since and they consisted of a variety of small they converted valueless space into prime shops—there were no anchor stores. rental property. The arcade drew shoppers off the street by providing a sheltered but naturally lit space under the glass roof (it THE DEPARTMENT STORE was also a handy short-cut, being open at each end). This was an era when the new- One of the earliest successful department fangled all-glass roof showed up in exhibi- stores was the Marble Palace, which tion halls such as Crystal Palace, railroad opened in New York City in 1846, across station terminals, and conservatories. So, the street from the city hall. The multi- arcades were both convenient and trendy. story building combined a number of London developers copied the Parisian innovations. Unlike other stores, it did not arcades, but made them wider and often specialize but sold a large variety of goods two stories tall. The added cost of building organized in different “departments.” It REVIEW 35 also had a policy of displaying prices, use of electric lighting in a public building which the ordinary shops did not do. This was in a Parisian department store. was calculated to attract a broad public, The downtown department store— which was often intimidated by having to which later migrated to the suburbs— bargain with merchants or by needing to dominated retailing for about 100 years. know ahead of time the value of what they Through its imposing architecture it estab- were buying. The Marble Palace, as the lished an atmosphere of luxury and gentil- name suggested, was a grand building. ity, aimed primarily at women shoppers. There was a central space covered by a 90- Because it arrived in an era when individ- foot-tall dome and extremely large, plate- ual manufacturers did not advertise glass display windows on the street. nationally, the department store— The department stores built during the Wanamaker’s, Bloomingdale’s, Marshall second half of the nineteenth century were Field’s—became the name that consumers usually located downtown, often occupy- recognized and trusted. ing a full city block and rising many floors. Department stores were invented by This arrangement depended on a recent merchants, not by developers. But they technological invention: the elevator (later played an important role in that quintes- augmented by escalators). This permitted sential merger of real estate development the various departments to be stacked one and retailing: the shopping mall. atop the other, creating a vast—and self- contained—shopping world. Like the arcade, the department store THE SHOPPING MALL spread internationally: to Paris, which had some of the grandest examples; to Arcades, galleries, and department stores London; and to the other major European were urban phenomena, but after World cities. In America, merchandisers such as War II, new American communities were Marshall Field and John Wanamaker increasingly suburban. The earliest attempted to outdo each other in building American suburbs, which dated from the ever more impressive department stores, late 1800s, were purely residential. The which now included dining rooms, monu- residents had no choice but to go down- mental atriums, and in the case of town to shop, or to order from downtown Wanamaker’s flagship Philadelphia store, shops and department stores. Only belat- which opened in 1911, the world’s largest edly did suburban developers include organ. Nothing was too good—or too retailing spaces in their master plans, in the grand—for department stores. The first form of town centers or shopping villages. 36 ZELL/LURIE REAL ESTATE CENTER Some of the earliest examples were occurred in 1956: the construction of the Country Club Plaza outside Kansas City, first completely indoor shopping mall in a Suburban Square on Philadelphia’s Main suburb of Minneapolis. The architect, Line, and Market Square in Lake Forest, Victor Gruen, specifically referred to north of Chicago. Milan’s Galleria as a model, and many The earliest planned suburbs were rela- indoor malls incorporated glass roofs (and tively exclusive, but as suburbanization often two levels) in the manner of the became ubiquitous, the small shopping nineteenth-century arcades. The largest villages were replaced by larger and larger indoor shopping malls also drew from the retail complexes, now called shopping cen- tradition of the grand department store by ters, which included a number of shops, creating an atmosphere of luxury, with leased to merchants, as well as a parking fountains and water features, trees and lot. The first so-called regional shopping elaborate planting, and expensive finishes. center was Northgate, which opened in At this time, the standard mall design 1950 on a 60-acre site in suburban Seattle. was developed. It consisted of a two-level Not a mere town center, it drew from a mall, and parking lots that were sloped to wider area, as evidenced by its 4,000-car provide alternative access to the upper as parking lot. In addition to a supermarket, well as the lower levels. This meant that it included a movie theater, a bowling alley, the shopper could park, walk one level and small shops, as well as a department down, and walk back to the car, shopping store to “anchor” the development. on the other floor. This arrangement Large suburban shopping centers like works only with two levels—adding a Northgate followed a formula: they were third story does not attract shoppers and built on inexpensive land on the outskirts merely increases the construction cost. of the city, usually near a major highway Parking structures were expensive to build interchange, they provided free parking, and were rarely economic propositions and they combined department stores (unless subsidized by public money). If with smaller shops. The formula worked. they were built, it was as a last resort, when In 1950 there were about 100 shopping space was at a premium. centers in the United States; at the end of The challenge for mall developers was, the decade there were 3,700. The main first, how to attract the largest number of change in shopping centers was that they shoppers, and second, how to keep them became larger and larger, exceeding one in the mall. Mall developers expanded the million square feet of rentable space. range of tenants, including not only movie A significant design innovation theaters and restaurants, but also non- REVIEW 37 retail uses such as banks, hotels, federal As Moy and Linneman point out else- and state offices, public libraries, health where in this issue, many shopping malls clubs, and medical centers. Some of the that once seemed invulnerable have been larger malls also integrated entertainment seriously challenged in the late 1990s. functions such as theme parks and water There were a number of reasons. parks, in a further attempt to make the Architectural complexity and luxurious mall a recreation destination. In the construction drove up costs. With more process, malls became ever larger, growing and more two-worker families, shoppers to 2, 3, and 4 million square feet, and in were more interested in convenience and the case of the West Edmonton Mall, efficiency than in spending hours walking more than 5 million square feet. around in a huge shopping mall. Attempts to build shopping malls in Moreover, department stores, which had urban locations have generally failed been the chief draw for mall shoppers— (Chicago’s Michigan Avenue is a notable and bore little of the cost burden of the exception).